A court in Tehran issued guilty verdicts and indictments for 315 people arrested for taking part in Iran’s anti-government demonstrations, as student rallies and fresh labor strikes buoyed protests into their sixth week.
Four of the people have been charged with “belligerence”, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency, a crime that can carry a sentence of death or limb amputation. There have been thousands of arrests since protests erupted on Sept. 16 following the death in police custody of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini, who’d been arrested for allegedly flouting Iran’s strict Islamic dress code.
The other defendants have been accused of “gathering and conspiring with intent to damage national security, propaganda against the state and public disorder”, which can carry substantial jail terms. Their cases have all been passed on to court for trial, IRNA reported citing Tehran public prosecutor Ali Salehi.
On Monday, multiple videos and photos shared on Twitter showed demonstrations at universities in Hamedan, Tehran and Esfahan, some of which showed students trying to defy gender segregation rules that are mandatory at campus cafeterias.
The Kurdish group Hengaw Human Rights Organization said teacher unions across Iran’s Kurdish provinces also announced strikes in solidarity with protesters. A 21-year-old Kurdish student had been killed after being beaten by security forces during protests on Oct. 12 in the city of Hamedan, according to the rights group. The report couldn’t be verified by Bloomberg.
Official Heckled
Earlier on Monday, Iran’s government spokesman, Ali Bahadori Jahromi, was loudly heckled while he tried to give a speech at the K.N. Toosi University of Technology in Tehran, according to the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency.
Unverified videos of the event shared on Twitter show a substantial crowd in the audience shouting “death to the Basij”, a reference to Iran’s voluntary Islamic militias, and “we don’t want a corrupt regime or a murderous guest.” Pro-regime students tried to counter the slogans, according to ISNA and photos published by the hardline Tasnim news agency.
The protests are among the biggest since Iran’s 1979 revolution and have broadened into a major rebuke of the Islamic Republic, triggering a crushing response from authorities. The latest figures compiled by the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights, show at least 215 people have been killed by security forces, including 27 children. The Iranian government hasn’t updated its official death toll of 41 since Sept. 24.
None of the protesters who were indicted on Monday have been named and all were arrested in the capital, Tehran, IRNA said.
The four facing execution are accused of “drawing weapons with intent to cause fear and terror, injuring security forces, destroying and setting fire to public and government property, disturbing national security and confronting the holy regime of the Islamic Republic,” according to IRNA.
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